Apparatus and a method for outputting control information

• US 7,333,949 B2
• Filed: 10/23/2001
• Issued: 02/19/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Shimizu, Yusuke, Murase, Kaoru
• Primary Examiner(s): Kramer; James A.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Khattar; Rajesh
• Application Number:
  US09/983,264
• Publication Number:
  US 20020107832A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,310 Days
• Field of Search: 705/27
• US Class Current: 705/27.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2543 Billing , e.g. for subscription services payment schemes, architectures or protocols G06Q20/00; e-commerce G06Q30/00; arrangements for billing for the use of broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/21
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25883 being end-user demographical data, e.g. age, family status or address arrangements for identifying locations of users in broadcast systems H04H60/52
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44204 Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; protecting generic digital content where the protection is independent of the precise nature of the content G06F21/10; arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services in broadcast systems H04H60/31
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4622 Retrieving content or additional data from different sources, e.g. from a broadcast channel and the Internet web site content organization and management for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/958; transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82; stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services including data channel over packet-switching network H04L12/1859
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4782 Web browsing , e.g. WebTV
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8355 involving usage data, e.g. number of copies or viewings allowed
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8586 by using a URL processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94; information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; URL in broadcast information H04H20/93; Web-based protocols H04L67/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A digital contents providing system selects second digital content to be reproduced along with first digital content which is selected by a user, depending on the individual information of a user such as age, sex, liking, and annual income, and sequentially reproduces the two digital contents as one reproducing stream according to reproducing control information specifying an order of reproducing the data included in both the first digital content and the second digital content.

Claims

1. A digital contents reproducing apparatus comprising:

an information storage unit operable to store a plurality of second digital contents;

a receiving unit operable to receive a transport stream sent from a broadcasting station, the transport stream containing first digital content and reproduction control information that is used for selection of one of the second digital contents being matchable to a time at which the reproduction control information is detected by the digital contents reproducing apparatus;

a table retaining unit operable to retain a reproducing time table indicating, for each of the second digital contents, a reproducing time period of the second digital content;

a time detecting unit operable to detect the reproduction control information from the received transport stream, and obtain the detection time of the reproduction control information; and

a reproducing unit operable to select and reproduce one of the second digital contents whose reproducing time period indicated by the reproducing time table includes the detection time of the reproduction control information.

2. A digital contents reproducing method performed by a digital contents reproducing apparatus including an information storage unit operable to store a plurality of second digital contents and a table retaining unit operable to retain a reproducing time table indicating, for each of the second digital contents, a reproducing time period of the second digital content, the digital contents reproducing method comprising:

receiving a transport stream sent from a broadcasting station, the transport stream containing first digital content and reproduction control information that is used for selection of one of the second digital contents beiun matchable to a time at which the reproduction control information is detected by the digital contents reproducing apparatus;

detecting the reproduction control information from the received transport stream, and obtaining the detection time of the reproduction control information; and

selecting and reproducing one of the second digital contents whose reproducing time period indicated by the reproducing time table includes the detection time of the reproduction control information.